Character sketches.

I thought it would be handy to have some "portraits" so that I could draw from them. Babies and children are different shapes to adults, in the face and body. So I drew the different characters a few times to get used to drawing different ages, and to have some references. The more I drew, the better I got, because of practice.

Not very good Emily

Better Emily with practice faces at different angles

Baby brother Todd/Ben

Older brother Luke

Dad and Mum

I did a series of portraits of all the family. Some things I started working out at this stage:

• Eye-shaped eyes don't look as good as just dots and eyebrows. 
• The shorter the arms and legs are, the younger the child looks.
• I like drawing feet.
• I'm trying to make them look messy and casual. It's hard to go against my instinct to make everyone beautiful, but I tried to make the Dad have a bit of a tummy and a receding hairline, the mum look mum-shaped, the kids chubby.
• I've figured out that I should draw hair in big chunky outlines. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't at all.
• I have to draw Emily's body first and then draw her dress over the top and then rub out her body.
• Stripes look really cute. Lots of Bonds-style striped clothing.